


I Danced in the Shadows with my Demons

by CavannaRose, MelyssaShadows



Series: World of Darkness Fics [3]
Category: Mage: The Awakening, Vampire: The Masquerade, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: Awakened, F/M, Hurricane Katrina, Investigations, Mages, Murder Mystery, New Orleans, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2020-10-20 23:41:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20683883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavannaRose/pseuds/CavannaRose, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MelyssaShadows/pseuds/MelyssaShadows
Summary: Bernard is a Master Magi, one of the older Awakened from the Verbena, but he is called to the home he had as a Sleeper to aid with a tragedy, and then another tragic mystery tugs at his coat tails and demands to be explored, perhaps with the aid of a mysterious, amnesiatic Kindred.





	1. Chapter 1

The hurricane had been the worst that New Orleans had ever faced. It plowed through Louisiana and headed straight on up to Mississippi, uncaring as to the devastation it had left in it's path. For one such of him, steeped in the Sphere of Life, it was particularly shattering. Though the other Verbena had warned him away, he had felt a call to return to the city where he had been born a century previous. The Sleepers of New Orleans were dear to him, whether or not they opened their eyes to the depth and complexity of the world around him.

Even for one of the Awakened who had achieved the heights he had reached, the aftermath of Katrina took its toll on him, and on his mental and magickal resources. He had fallen so deep into the healing that he had almost given out slivers of his own soul by the time the worst of the damage had been repaired. Even now, he was still trying to bolster his fleeting reserves of power. It was worth it though, to see the way the Sleepers came together. They threw away old rivalries and hatreds, reaching out their hands to help one another, and whenever the hands came up short, his own calloused ones slid into place. When his magick was exhausted, he aided physically, building tone and muscle that the Awakened rarely amassed.

The Big Easy was much the same, though the ghosts were more plentiful than they had once been. The French Quarter was lively once more, and the singing and drinking echoed far into the night, attesting to the unique ability of the Sleepers to spring back from whatever tragedy swung their way. Their resilience awed him. It was something the Awakened were beginning to lack. They had fallen so deep into their own ways, any major change set them back for ages. The last contact he had made with his Cadre gave forth rumours that the Technocracy was rising again. As unchanging as the tides they fought for control and unrelenting progress, and as stubborn as the Creole folk, the Awakened resisted.

Before Bernard had Awakened, he had been here, in the heart of New Orleans. Raised a poor Cajun boy, his family had been totally unaware of the spark of the supernatural that lay latent within them. Not him, though. He had always known there was something special about himself. He had struggled, clawed, and fought his way from out his heritage and into the world that he could only consider his right. He had a hunger inside him, a need to learn all there was, and an affinity with the world around him that had his old Nan calling him a 'canny one'. But that had been a long time ago, everyone who had known him before he was Awakened was long since dead and buried.

He had been prepared to leave New Orleans once more and return to his Cadre when another, darker set of whispers had reached his ears. Children were going missing. Perhaps nothing that most of the supernatural community would notice, but the Awakened paid attention to the Sleepers, because they knew the real truth. Every human being contained a spark inside them, and giving the chance any one of them could become Awakened. As such, every human child was considered a child of the Awakened, and they paid extra special attention. They did not propagate like the Kindred, the Fae, the Fallen, or the Beastfolk, and they were not the dead like the Amenti and the Wraiths. Their only source of new blood came from the Sleepers, and despite what the Technocracy believed, they deserved to be protected.

Bernard began to investigate. With his abilities weakened from the hurricane, he had to tread carefully, and took up the persona of a human private investigator. Admittedly, he was having a spot of fun with the role, despite the seriousness of his investigation. He had procured suspenders and corduroys, a rather fetching hat, and a pair of shiny wingtips to complete the look. He took his pad of paper, though the notes in it were scribbled in a language that only another Magi could read, and set out to solve the mystery. More importantly, he had to guarantee that the Technocracy were not behind this new horror. Had the Big Easy not suffered enough?

The first roadblock came up with a family out of Jersey. They weren't so keen on talking after having been visited by what the father described as a nosy reporter, but he hounded them for a few days. The third day, though, he received a blank look. The family didn't recall any word of a child. Surely they hadn't had one with them when they came from Jersey, having no offspring. The reek of dark magick was so strong that Bernard couldn't believe that even the Sleepers could not scent it out. With precious energy, he examined their auras to find them muddied, clouded by a dark veil pulled between them and their memories. Without knowing the spell, it was too risky to try to blow holes in it, and his heart ached for the families, for they did not even know what they were missing.

He kept up his search through the Quarter, and then he got another clue. Though he didn't think that the magic around the Sleepers smelled of the undead, the rumours in the supernatural side of the City was that one of the Kindred had territory down near a bar with fairly heavy human traffic. It was a slight lead, but he would follow it. He gave himself a few days though, enough to stockpile at least a little energy. The Kindred were fierce, and though his specific Sphere of specialization made him uniquely suited to face off against one, he couldn't risk that they were old and wily, not with his resources so tapped. Determined to go about this in a friendly fashion, at least until he determined if the leech was also the child-killer, he headed to scout out the local watering hole.

Perhaps stalking someone's back courtyard and garbage wasn't the most neighbourly way to make your approach, but Bernard was not about to throw wild accusations around without at least some preliminary digging. He watches with interest as a man throws a large sack into the dumpster, the side splitting to reveal an assortment of children's objects. He frowns, vaulting in to take a look around. Young girl, maybe eight years old from the looks of her toys. He digs through to pick out a few obviously favoured items. Later maybe he can whip up some magick to try and locate the little mite. That was when he heard the softest scuff of a shoe on gravel.

Peeking his head over the side of the dumpster, he watches the elegant woman holding the teddy bear approach with interest. From the description he had received, this was the bloodsucker. She looked distressed, not an expression he was used to seeing on the faces of the undead. "Hold your step there, if you don't mind, Kindred, I'd like to have a word or two with you in regards to some small disappearances."


	2. Chapter 2

"I have a name." The woman finally speaks, her French accent soft, but distinctly Parisian. "I may be Kindred, but I have a name." She sighed, frowning at the mess of items he had dropped out of the dumpster. "My name is Marie de Barbarac." Crossing her arms, she took a step back and raised an eyebrow as she returned her attention to Bernard. "I know most vampires are looked upon as murderous leeches, but I can assure you, I am not that. And you? Qui êtes vous?" Her head tilted to one side, reminding him of a curious cat. "Do I get to know your name?"

Fascinating. Though duly indignant, the vampire seemed friendly enough. He had dealt with enough posturing Kindred that he was always a little stiff-collared around them. He gave her his most disarming smile, the one his fellow Awakened told him made him look like a bumbling college professor. That was one of his talents, the ability to seem absolutely ordinary while wielding some of the highest magicks of his people. "Apologies chérie, my old Nanny would have tanned my hide if she heard me forgetting my manners in such a way." From where he stood in the dumpster, he brushed some stray refuse from his corduroys before performing a quick bow. "Bernard Armand, private investigator, at your service."

Of course, then the leech had to ruin everything by snatching the slim diary he had discovered from his hands. She was fast, fast enough he almost didn't see her move, and that was dangerous. "This is Ella's..." She whispered, easily breaking the locked seal and opening the cover. She flipped through a few pages, the distress on her face deepening. Snapping the book closed, she hugged it tight to her chest, turning a glare on him that almost made him take a step back. "Do you know where she is?"

Swallowing as he carefully picked his next words, he ran nervous fingers through his hair, completely ruining whatever semblance of styling he had accomplished that morning as the long bangs fell over his eyes. "You knew the girl?" That was... odd. Vampires rarely fed on children, and they rarely paid attention to humans except those that they liked to nosh on. This one, though, seemed caught up in the life of this child in a rather personal way. That was interesting, different... and helpful. The part that made tracking the children hardest was no one had memories left of them. If the vampire wasn't affected by the blanket amnesia she could help him bolster his spell, and maybe he could find out a few things about how the spell worked, starting from the point of it did not effect the Kindred...

And he had drifted off, his mind wandering down avenues of inquiry. He was a scholar, as were most of his Sphere, and he simply didn't get out very often these days. Not like when he was a younger man, a hundred years or so ago. There was a reason the bumbling professor persona suited him so well. Still, the woman was speaking again, and he forcibly grabbed his attention to refocus on what she was saying. "Is it just me, or does it feel different here now?" She paused, shaking her head. "Not _here_, not _now_, but since Katrina. It's like something happened during that storm. The city pretends it's alright and the people are living again, but since then... something's been off." She drew the journal away from her chest and gently traced the outline of the embossed flowers on the cover. "I can't truly put my finger on it, but something is wrong." Closing her eyes, she shook her head again, having as much trouble as he was focusing on the here and now. Wasn't that interesting? "If you're looking for the missing children I'm going with you."

Her voice was firm, with a strangely seductive lilt in it. When she opened her eyes again, she tried to lock onto his gaze, and he nearly laughed at the attempt at hypnosis. Did she... not know what he was? "I've been looking for them all of this time and I'm not going to stop. If you can help, you can help, otherwise, I'll keep looking into things, and you'll back off. I don't need a vampire hunter stabbing me in the chest every few seconds with a stake trying to earn points at his Vampire Hunters of America club. For the record, stakes don't kill me. Don't waste your time. Do you know what this is? Why the kids are just... gone? It's not the Kindred. None of them are hunting children this way in the city. There's only one vampire in town who enjoys children, and he isn't strong enough to do this. Do you know Dolion? He lives about two blocks away. I keep my eye on him, and I cut off his arm the last time he tried to snatch a kid. This isn't him, but we could ask him if he's noticed anything." Then her expression changes, a charming smile meant to disarm the unwary. "Perhaps you should come out of the dumpster now?"

He held up a hand, his expression wary. What was it about vampires that made them think they could just run roughshod over every other creature? They didn't teach themselves about the greater supernatural community, and yet they expected everything to fall into place for them whenever they wanted it to. The heavy handed approach had always ruffled Bernard's feathers, it reeked of the arrogance of the Technocracy, the battle against whom was one of his main life goals. "Let me stop you right there, petite. I'm not one of the Sleepers, wandering around with a mind you can cloud. Those little vamp tricks won't work on me, so you can just do us both a favour and stuff the attitude."

With one hand on the side of the dumpster, he neatly vaulted over the edge. Landing lightly, Bernard straightened his spine, and gave her his best disapproving father look. "Now I don't know where you learned your manners, sha, but 'round here we we try to be polite. Come see and maybe I'll let you help my little investigation, I got some gris gris that mayhap you can aid with on account you knew the girl, but if you're gonna play the whole superior Kindred game then we ain't gonna pass a good time, you know?" If anyone had told him this morning he was going to be lecturing a vampire on proper behaviour when dealing with other supernaturals from within a dumpster, he would have laughed. His life was continuously getting weirder and weirder the longer he lived.

Of course, if any of the Awakened was going to lecture the undead, it was going to be him. It came from being from an earlier time, back when the supernatural elements interacted more. The vampire clearly had no idea what he was, and maybe it was time to enlighten her. "I'm no vodoun priest, barely tapping into the potential of the universe. I am Awakened, and probably as old as you, chérie. It's why the Council lets me poke around down here. So how's about instead of playing Big Bad Vamp you and I try to converse like civilized folk, neh?"


	3. Chapter 3

She smiles and it almost looks innocent, but could a vampire ever truly achieve that? "Superior kindred? Never. I am not LaCroix or Reaver." The vampire hugged the diary close, eyes locked on his every move. Even as she tried to seem harmless, the fact that she was still a predator was in her every gesture. "I do apologize if I appear rude. I am relearning the ways of my kind. I have very few memories beyond the last few months. I wasn't sure if you were a mortal or not. I would ask you to be patient with me as I do not mean to be disrespectful."

Glancing at the diary again, she nodded, and he wondered if she would actually answer the questions he had posed to her."Yes, I knew her." Finally she offered the diary back to him, and he took it, opening it up and running his hands over the carefully formed words. "Ella. She's ten. She's Christian's daughter. Christian runs the bar. Everything was fine, then today he threw all of her things out and he acted like he never had a daughter." She paused, squeezing her eyes shut and taking a deep breath, though he never knew one of the kindred who needed to do so. A habit from her mortal life? Was she so young, then?

"Look, I'm no 'big bad vamp', I'm lost and I don't mind admitting that. I want to find Ella, I want to figure out what's going on around here, and I'd like to figure out what's wrong with my amnesia. Last I checked it's not exactly normal for vamps to have head injuries."  
She sighed. "You seem to know everything, what's happening around here? Monsieur Armand, I would appreciate you not looking at me like I've dined on the petit enfant. I never would. I may be a vampire, it does not make me a monster." Her gaze drifted away, back to the figure of the man barely visible through the bar windows.

"C'est si étrange." She mumbled. Turning back to Bernard, she raised a curious eyebrow, "What exactly is an Awakened? Are you a mage of some kind? A Templar Knight? What are you? You seem to know so much about me and my kind. It would only be fair to tell me about you. We are going to be working together, after all." Without waiting for his explanation, she looked into the dumpster again. Gasping and then biting her lip, she leaned over the dumpster, reaching for something inside. Stretching awkwardly. Finally she emerged, looking quite pleased with herself, and holding up the gold cross.

"Ella's. Well, her mother's. When we find her, she'll want this. It would be a waste for it to go to the city dump, wouldn't it? It's been in her mother's family for generations." She touched the delicate cross, inspecting it in a way that didn't really surprise him. So many of the Sleepers thought that the Kindred feared holy symbols, but it was not truly that common. The item had to be blessed by a true believer, borne by a true believer. He watched fascinated as the leech affixed it around her neck. Most would not, wishing to perpetuate the false belief that they could be harmed with such symbols. It kept them safe.

"Tell me, Monsieur Armand, what other strange things lurk in this city?" She asked. "What could do this to children? What could do this to their parents? What will we face? How should we prepare?"

"Chère, I must confess you have posed to me more questions than answers here, you. I appreciate your compliments, a gentleman never declines such from a lady, but I do not actually know everything, just many things, so long as they interest me." He paused, smiling ruefully. "The Kindred have always been a fascination for me, but I agree. I do not believe that this is the work of your kind. It is too clean, too complete, and few are the undead who can wield magic so efficiently that the Awakened cannot taste them on it." He wrinkled his nose, sifting through his thoughts, coming up with another thing she had said. "Wait... you do have amnesia? Was it magically induced? How long ago were you affected? Do you have any hints of memories from before?"

He stopped, the realization that he was badgering the poor woman, and that he was falling further and further off track, slamming the breaks on his inquiry. Embarrassment briefly flashed across his features, though disappeared quickly. It was not in his nature to regret inquisitiveness... at least not when it was his own. He sketched a quick bow, regardless, since the Kindred he had known thus far had not appreciated being questioned, particularly not by the living. "Apologies, chèrie. I get away with myself when there's such a delightful puzzle in reach. Without knowing your particularly bloodline, the possible reasons are varied, but perhaps when the children have all been located you would let me see if I could assist with the memory loss you face as well?"

At his age, a good puzzle to mull over was better than anything else. Better than the fleeting sexual encounters of the Sleepers. Better than the memory of his Mam's gumbo. His Awakening had taken an already curious mind and multiplied that need exponentially. Reining it in wasn't usually a problem, but then again he was rarely in the pursuit of those that abducted children. He shook his head, trying to get his mind back on the immediate task. He turned the journal in his hand, flipping through pages near the back. Reading quickly, he shook his head. Nothing that hinted at who might have come for the child. No signs of fear or of unusual activity. With a sigh he closed it and tucked it into his vest.

"I find I must apologize again, chère. Truly, do not think that I am unconcerned with the petite. Sometimes this old brain of mine gets all excited and leaves the thinking parts behind. You asked about what I am, and I think perhaps it is fair for me to tell you some of that before we go further into the investigating, no? Mage is a good word for what I am, it's what the Sleepers call my people, though they cannot begin to comprehend what that might mean. We've never been associated with the Knights Templar, that is mortal business, and far beneath the notice of the Awakened. My Cadre are not, generally speaking, militant in nature. We are healers, tinkerers, scholars... You may have noticed that the last one describes us best."

He ruffled his hair, tilting his head to one side and squinting slightly while he decided how much to share with the vampire. "Like your people, we do not die by natural means, though admittedly we are easier to kill than your type. The other side of that is we are not confined to the darkness like most Kindred, nor do we share your weaknesses. Like your folk, we start out there," Bernard gestured broadly towards the bar, the street, all the places where the humans hustled and bustled. "One of them, the Sleepers. Inside each of them is a spark, though they do not know it. That spark, if Awakened, can grant them access to the magicks, immortality, and dubious politics of our world. That spark is what lets them survive the transformation to Garou. That spark is what carries them beyond death to become Kindred."

He laughed. "Sometimes the Sleepers call it a soul, but that is a different beast entirely. I'll not bore you with the details when we have more pressing matters. The Spark, though, is important. Each one has it's own energy, it's own pull. With items that mattered to this petite, and with one who holds memories of her, I can build an echo of that spark through my magicks, and we can use that echo to track her down. Hopefully when we find her, we will also find the other missing enfants. Once we have the little ones, I should be able to start working on the amnesia, for we will know who did the casting."

He tapped a finger against his lips. "I worry that it could be some of the Awakened, not all our people are scholarly, some are quite... Let us just say their shades of grey have dropped too many times into the inkwell." His eyes narrowed slightly. "I think it is more likely that it was Fae or Fallen. Neither of them have the Spark, though those that were Elohim do have a soul, so they have half of what the Sleepers have. Both factions have long been enamored of the offspring borne to the Sleepers, though for very different reasons." He beckoned to the vampire, _Marie_. He must remember to use her name. "Come chèrie. We have much work to do if I am to find the child sooner rather than later. Unless there is something else you know that you have not told me yet?"


	4. Flashback

He had always been prone to getting lost in the details. Of letting some little oddity or wondrous new fact distract him from the goal at hand. It wasn't his fault, his brain was just wired that way. Even back before he was Awakened. He rarely thought about his life amidst the Sleepers, it had been so long ago. New Orleans had already been founded by the time his people arrived. Expelled from their home, they came to this strange, swampy land. They struggled, but they survived, and eventually thrived. He had been born in 1775, in what amounted to a shack built on stilts in the bayou. 

His family had been poor. There was no school for him, no shoes, no books. Not at first, anyway. Still, there was a whole world to explore and learn about. His childhood, looking back, seemed idyllic. He had no demands on his time, outside of 'be home for dinner'. Though his parents struggled, that difficulty barely touched him. Instead he lost hours, even days sometimes, peering at the intricacies of the natural world. He would lay across tree branches, listening to the mating grunts of the 'gators. He would watch in fascination as a lightning bug tangled itself in a spider's web, only to be cocooned and consumed. Once he watched a snake swallow a rabbit three times as big around as its head.

All of this he watched, absorbed, and studied with the intensity of a man devoted to higher learning, even though he would not have been able to write his own name if his life depended on it. Then his Ma came home one day, glowing with pride. She'd managed to procure a copy of the Bible, and though none of them could read the neatly printed words, it had strange hieroglyphics that made it possible to grasp the meat of the story, if not the whole of it. Bernard had been fascinated with the book, and his days of outdoor exploration quickly became hours pouring over the second-hand tome. Once he had worked out the meaning of the pictures, it was a long and laborious effort to teach himself the words in between them.

No one stopped him, for surely there was nothing bad to be had from the Bible. His Pa, perhaps, thought it was strange how focused the boy had gotten, but as long as he was out of everyone's hair, no one said any different. With nothing to read except that Bible, he pieced together letters and words, until he knew without a doubt what it said. Memorized backwards and forwards, he longed for more, but there was nothing else to be had. By this time, the lankiness of adolescence was taking over, and a lifetime of work was looming ever closer. Every day he could hear his Pa beginning to grouse about all that was being done to keep the boy fed and clothed already, even though his was skinny as snake and his clothes were so thin you could practically see through them. That didn't matter. The boy was becoming a man, and a man had a duty to provide for his family.

With great reluctance he set aside the pursuit of answers from his boyhood, following his father every morning on the long trek into the Spanish-controlled city where they could pick up day labour helping clean up the remnants of the big fires that had swept the city, or helping haul brick and mortar for the rebuilding efforts. The work was hard, and with little food and fewer breaks, it left his mind little time to wander. Every spark of concentration was needed to keep putting one foot in front of the other, one stone atop the next. His fingers blistered and his skin burned under the unrelenting sun. They were worked like slaves, and those that employed them treated them worse. 

The term Cajun wasn't one of endearment, but derision. That was the first he had learned about the way people could hate one another. Such things had hardly been discussed in what he now knew was a children's version of the Bible that his family prized so well. The hatred was like a living thing, tugging at his skin worse than the brier patch. It coated the world with an unpleasant film, and going out into it was worse than falling down a hillock full of spider webs. He wanted to scrub his flesh clean of it, but every corner held more. For the first time, he learned that he, too, could hold hate in his heart. Hate for the wealthy Spanish who claimed this city, his city.

The second set of fires hadn't been his fault. Not really. He didn't think it was, anyway, though the suspicion sat in the back of his mind. They had been working in a tobacco warehouse that day, hauling bundles brought in from the plantations. His father had always been fond of a good chew, though he could rarely afford one. They had caught Pa with his hand in a bushel, and thrown him into prison for it. Bernard had been imprisoned as well, for throwing himself upon the thugs who'd taken his father away and biting one of them. The unfairness of it all bubbled up inside him, threatening to overflow. 

Without warning the air had filled with the smell of smoke, and it seemed like the wall burst into flames where his hand touched the aged planks. The fire spread quickly, and it was pure luck that led both boy and man from the ruins of the old jail and out into the streets. Bells were ringing, folks were screaming, and buckets were fetched from every nook and cranny, while the two Cajuns fled. No one stopped them, just as no one seemed to be able to stop the fire. As they neared the Mississippi river, Bernard looked back, concern for his city easing the rage he felt against those that had mistreated his father so harshly. He watched as the fires finally seemed to come under control, stopping short of the waterfront buildings. Surely, only a coincidence. Even now, though, he wondered...


	5. Flashback

It wasn't but shortly after that second set of fires that Bernard finally Awakened. Well, shortly in the way he saw things now anyhow. Back then years actually took their time, plodding along in endless sameness, one day much like the next with very little change in routine. He and his father had retreated back into the bayou where the fancy folk would never follow, but the loss of income was hard on their family. There were five girls between him and his next oldest brother, and that lad wouldn't be old enough to go find work for years yet. Instead Ma and Pa started up a moonshine still, making money by selling to their own kind for shiny copper pennies, though Bernard's father drank nearly as much as he sold. The workings of the still fascinated Bernard, though he didn't quite approve of what came out of it, nor did he enjoy the state it set his father in. The old man was an angry drunk, railing against the Spanish, the bayou itself, and anyone who came within arm's reach. He never got violent, though. He'd just take hold of your arm and rail about whatever was eating away at his insides that day, then collapse into an odoriferous heap and weep. No young man should see his father in that state.

For his part, Bernard took to the swamps and hunted, bringing in much needed meat and wild things to fill out the stew pot. He'd gather up wax myrtle berries and muscadine grapes from the vine, though he had no name to put to them. Sometimes if he brought in a big haul, Ma and his sisters would spend a day canning and jarring, making sweet jams and jellies that proved to Bernard that he was doing his part to make their lives easier. Okra was a common appearance on their dinner plates, and he eventually graduated from hunting the brown pelicans and red squirrels to bringing in a small gator from time to time. He didn't hate doing his part for the family, and though the memory of the strange power of words on paper tugged at him, there was plenty to learn from the natural world. While he waited for baited traps to spring he would follow ant colonies, watching their diligent work as they turned aging cypress trees into massive complexes for the next generations. Life was hard, but not unbearable. It took a few years, but his father drunk his way to an early grave, but that didn't dim the love in the family. Once Pa had passed, the still was put up and away.

Bernard refused to leave his family until his brothers were old enough to take care of Ma and the littles. He watched as one by one his sisters got hitched to boys from the area, setting up their own homes as best they could. When they struggled he would leave gifts at their doors. Hunted game and the like to tide them over through the hard times while husbands were off finding work, or worse, finding themselves hauled off to fight in the endless tide of wars that the government seemed intent on fighting. Then the army came for Bernard, press-ganging him into joining as a former criminal, though officially there was no conscription. It was small comfort as he found himself packed into the cramped quarters of a leaky ship and run out to the Barbary coast. For someone used to the freedom and openness of the swamp, it was a nightmare. Hotter than the fires of Hell itself, he battled sea-sickness and influenza and any number of diseases that he had never been exposed to amidst his crew-mates. No matter what spread through the ship, though, he never seemed to take ill. A fellow soldier, taking a breath between puking out his guts, once joked that if Bernard had been female they would have thought he was a witch.

Quickly proven useless with a gun and too weak to lift the heavy ballast for the cannons, Bernard eventually found himself in the makeshift infirmary helping the woefully under trained field medic assigned to their berth. He might not have the benefit of any kind of education, but it became quickly clear to Bernard that the man was not only an idiot, but a danger to the crew and soldiers he was supposedly there to save. Many a night Bernard wasted candle lengths poring over tomes filled with long, complicated words that he only barely understood, teaching himself the basics of modern medicine in order to prevent the men on their ship from dying due to incompetence. There were few gleaming officers amidst their ranks, and those that there were had their own personal physicians in attendance. Instead Bernard's peers were a gathering of men much like him. Uneducated, poor, and sometimes unsure why exactly they were here in the first place. All they knew was they jumped when told or faced the Captain's lash or the Major's boot.

It was a hard time, full of high emotions and a tension that thrummed so loudly it practically had its own voice amidst them. It was here, locked in an airless cabin, practically choking on the smoke from an oil lamp, that Bernard Awakened. Hands coated in blood and pus from a fellow soldier's wound gone gangrenous, he was fiercely determined not to lose the battle he was fighting, far more important to him than what raged above them. If this man lost his leg, his service would be over, but he would have no way of supporting his family when they returned home, and Bernard refused to see one more good man crippled by the uncaring neglect of their commanding officers. With a grim determination he willed the wound clean and healed as he lined a neat row of stitches across the flesh for the third time in as many days. The man was long unconscious, assisted to that state by a quick draft of poppy and a prayer, so no one was witness as Bernard watched the flesh knit itself together beneath his needle, drawing into a thin, pink line, no sign of the red heat of infection or the yellow pustules of disease. He said a quick prayer to whomever was watching down in this Hell, and sat down heavily on the planks, feeling like someone had hit him in the square of the back with a cannonball.


End file.
